Ho Ho Ho Etc; Christmas comes early; Jazz Sawyers on Athlete 2030; Rugby's Gen Z fear; Dame Edna's Guide to Sports Marketing; Sportsbiz in 100 Objects; Keegan's crisps; Smaller and smaller rooms

Overthinking the sports business, for money

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Subscribers Assemble - The UP Christmas Do

Will we be seeing you for a festive something or other?

As a regular reader of the UP Newsletter, you’re very welcome to join us for an evening snifter.

Thrillingly, we’re going early to avoid the difficult mid-December rush.

It’s a Mayfair venue, see details via the ticket link below.

It’s not a big room, so don’t hang about.

First come, first served etc, no riff-raff.

Tickets on the red button…

When UP met AI…

Evidence based decision making

The choice to celebrate Christmas in November emerged from a rigorous interrogation of the data: People Who Decorate For Christmas Early Are Happier, Experts Confirm

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Anatomy of an Athlete in 2030

Athletes and fans.

The two groups of people the sports industry talks about in abstract, but who are rarely invited to contribute to the conversation.

So, it was great to spend time with two time Olympian Jazz Sawyers for this week’s podcast.

The context is Two Circles’ modelling of the sports marketplace over the next decade.

The headline number is £220billion, which is their estimate of the total value of the global market in 2032.

But within that number, there are big winners, and big losers.

Our series picks out key pillars - the athlete, content, tech - and dissects trends.

This week we got in to athlete as media platform.

A trend that’s undeniable, but which comes with real world challenges.

Chief among them is the commercial and creative bunfight that is access - and with it the ability of the athlete, and their media teams, to create interesting content; the sort of personal and yes…authentic…stuff that does well on social and engages a new audience and increases the commercial value of the athlete and the sport.

The obvious problem is that the event rights holder has already sold access to the broadcasters.

But rights deals remain a blunt instrument, a monolithic solution to a digital world.

A fraction of what’s possible ever sees the light of day, leaving athletes irritated by the lost opportunity to connect with fans, and potential fans.

Jazz Sawyers: I think a simple step is you say to broadcasters, ‘Okay, you can have everything on track, and you don't have the warm up area’. And at the minute, that's not the case: athletes can't film in the warm up area either. They can’t even buy access to it. It feels like a baby step, somebody like NBC takes the track, that's all theirs, but you - the athlete - can have the warm up area. You can tell way more stories there than you can out on the track.

You can see the challenge.

It’s why the athlete voice gives us the reality that lies just below the sports business powerpoint slide.

Take another trend, athlete as activist. Brand purpose. Stand for something. That’s the advice.

But then…

Jazz Sawyers: When we have athletes as creators and athletes as influencers, the scrutiny on social media, once you say you stand for something is intense. If you say that you want to protect the environment and then you're seen on a flight: Oh, your fans, quote unquote, will come down on you hard because you've said this one thing and this is what you believe in. And now you're doing one action that doesn't perfectly align with that. So it can feel risky to stand for things because you can lose your audience so quickly.

Hear the full conversation here:

And here’s Jazz wowing Will.I.Am on The Voice from 2017:

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GenZ Fear: EY ain’t betting on rugby

I shared this chart on LinkedIn this week, and it’s generated some comment, mainly from the rugby union lobby.

The chart comes from an EY report that’s available to download here.

Playing to smaller and smaller rooms

The above list is linked to Two Circles vision of 2030.

It relates to cultural relevance, which is a commonly used but slippery concept.

Put simply, some of today’s sports will just drift from view.

Two Circles predict 15% of sports rights holders will disappear over the coming decade.

Some sports in the list will slip from what we sometimes call the national consciousness.

That’s the existential fear; the Gen Z fear.

This is a great piece, written by the comedy writer Joel Morris just after the death of Barry Humphries.

Heartfelt tributes to made-up comedians

Humphries, and his alter ego Dame Edna, remained popular while others of his generation faded from view.

Why?

The best comedians are sophisticated analysts of their own audience.

Comedians who do an act based on outdated mind maps will find themselves playing to smaller and smaller audiences as society changes. They’ll end up in little back alley clubs, doing stuff to audiences who like them using racially offensive terminology.

Good, no?

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The SportsBiz in 100 Objects

The Kevin Keegan crisp packet

This week, a crisp packet from 1977 was found on a Cornish beach.

The packet features the picture and printed signature of former England footballer Kevin Keegan, and the chance to buy one of his endorsed "Superstar" tracksuits for £4.98.

Environmental sustainability, athlete as brand, sportainment - that crisp packet has got them all.

And ‘good quality nylon’.

For younger readers, this clip below is what all the fuss was about.

When Keegan fell off his bike on Superstars.

It’s hard to overestimate what a moment this was…

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And finally…we’re thrilled that our hit podcast series The Pirates vs The Premier League is now available across the biggest sports podcast network, Sport Social Podcast Network.

If you haven’t heard it, do it now.

Here.